[Thoughts] My First Run - Command Mission - Halatali

[Kerii]

I see what you're trying to do here, but isn't it kind of silly to post opinions about something you've done a whole two times? I've got your experience plus 100 (I'm literally at 102 runs), and honestly most of the complaints I've seen are nonsense. For example, Disengage can be used in two separate ways.

• By tapping disengage to cease attacks, and tapping engage on a new enemy you can force your squad to change targets without any anomalies, such as the tank randomly going after things you don't need. Doing this solved my tank running off in the first boss of Halatali. It also makes bursting adds down easy.
• When disengage is toggled and left on the squad begins to follow you while ignoring any enemy they pass. This means you can pull multiple packs (assuming they can survive it), or get creative with how you pull. This is very useful in wanderer's palace where there are a lot of tight knit packs and stalkers who can easily wipe the floor with you if pay them no heed.

In the same way, Engage has two separate uses.

• You can use engage to pull packs from further than your own target range. This is very useful when you want to stay far enough away that you don't get enmity when they pull. It also means you can take a second to grab items or chests while they mow down the pack.
• You can spam engage on a target to reset your squad's cooldowns and force them to focus on a single target. This means their DPS is significantly higher. High enough that it makes it a moot point for you to even attack most of the time. Whole packs can melt in seconds.

My final piece of advice is that squad members are smarter than chocobos. That means you can use them tactically. However, they aren't as intuitive as summoned pets. This means you'll be doing most of the legwork to make them do what you want. They are not players, so don't treat them like it. Attacks focus on you, and generally you pull enmity while doing nothing. (Lucid Dreaming and Diversion are useful for this reason). Consider them an extension of yourself. As a healer, you're going to spot heal and buff them. As a tank you'll pull and manage enmity. As a DPS you'll pretty much do nothing but spam engage and watch the show.

P.S. I wouldn't consider myself knowledgeable about this feature. I've just done a lot of tinkering with it as I've played. It's been fun getting some extra poetics and exp for playing with such an easy feature.